Ah! So you’re a Feminist.

Every woman knows a woman who was harassed. Every man knows a man who did it. A mirror on what it means to be a woman in the Sub-continent today.

“Feminist ho kya?”

It’s not a question. Not anymore. These days, it sounds more like an accusation, a slur, a punchline, a taunt someone throws your way when they’ve run out of arguments. If you’re a woman in Pakistan, chances are you’ve heard it used with the same tone and disgust reserved for words like be-heya or besharam. Somehow, asking for dignity, rights, and safety has been twisted into shamelessness. Somehow, being a feminist means you must hate men, hate religion, or worse you have “lost your values.”

But let’s step back. Where did this all begin? Feminism at its root was never a war against men. It was a cry for fairness. For balance. But along the way, especially in the digital era, things got tangled. During the rise of the #MeToo movement, when women around the world and here in Pakistan began sharing their truths, the internet stirred up. The stories were heavy. Some were messy. And in that mess, came backlash. Accusations of attention-seeking. The “woman card” narrative started. A lot of people started saying things like, “You can’t believe them all,” men feeling like they are the victims of hate even if the story wasn’t about them or, “What if she’s lying?” Yes, sure. There have been cases where the label of harassment was misused. We’re not blind to that. But the question is, how many? A few? And how many thousands stay silent because they know they won’t be believed?

You don’t burn the whole library because one book had a misprint. You don’t dismantle a movement because a handful misused it.

The truth is, the way we raise boys in the subcontinent, especially in Pakistan, sets the foundation. From the start, they’re told to be ‘mazboot’. “Mard kabhi rota nahi.” Boys who cry are told they’re acting like girls. Girls are told to lower their voices, shrink themselves, and learn to compromise. We plant this twisted equation where masculinity equals aggression and femininity equals weakness and submission. So, boys grow up with emotional repression, and girls grow up with emotional burdens. Neither learns empathy. Neither is taught how to truly co-exist. 

“Tumhara rona sirf rula nahi karta, tumhari khamoshi maar deti hai.”
–  Parveen Shakir

We’ve glorified female silence to the point where we wear it like a badge. We celebrate mothers who suffer in silence, wives who forgive abuse in the name of izzat and bharam, daughters who give up their dreams because the family needed them to. Sacrifice is not a gendered obligation, but we made it one. And when women now step out of that silence, when they speak, demand, protest, people simply lose their minds. Suddenly, she’s “influenced by the West,” she’s “asking for too much,” or worse, “she has no shame.”

Aur-at bhi to ek fard hai, kyun us pe hi pehre hain?

Azadi ke yeh parinday, kyun pinjre mein rehte hain?

We have created a society that punishes women not just for what they do, but for who they are. You don’t even need to speak anymore sometimes, wearing a shirt with Arabic calligraphy can be enough to make you the centre of a mob attack. Just ask the woman in Lahore’s bazaar who faced exactly that. Or remember the Sri Lankan man lynched in Sialkot over a false accusation of blasphemy. These aren’t isolated incidents. They are the reflection of us as a society that has weaponized outrage and lost its sense of proportion.

“Yahan log aksar sirf suna karte hain samajhne ka toh waqt kisi ke paas nahi.”

Speaking up here comes with a price. You either risk being misunderstood or being silenced entirely. That’s why even something as basic as the Aurat March gets reduced to “western propaganda” or “fahashi”. People don’t ask why women are marching. They just see a placard and lose their minds. Mera jism, meri marzi becomes an invitation for abuse. They refuse to understand it’s about bodily autonomy, about consent, about being able to say no and be heard. To them, it’s just an excuse to imagine a future filled with half-naked women and moral decay. And that’s where we go wrong, we stop listening. 

Unfortunately, our society is not willing to meet women where they are, so maybe we need to change how we speak? Just so we are heard, just so we are understood. Maybe we need to deconstruct the language of feminism to make it digestible for a culture built on shame and silence? No, that doesn’t mean we dilute the message. It means we shift the tone, just enough to start a dialogue. Because if we keep screaming in English about feminism in a land where people still whisper the word period, no one’s going to hear us.

At the same time, let’s call out the hypocrisy abroad too. Western feminists love talking about Afghan women under the Taliban. Great. Necessary. But where are their voices when women are being bombed in Gaza? When genocide is being live-streamed and babies are pulled from rubble? Suddenly, they go quiet. Because solidarity, it seems, comes with political conditions. The term for that is imperialistic feminism, when feminism becomes a tool for selective outrage, often used to justify war, racism, or silence. If your feminism doesn’t stand for all women, then who is it really for?

But it’s not just “them”. Let’s bring the mirror closer to our own faces.

Have you ever laughed at a sexist joke and shrugged it off as “just humour”? Are you still friends with that guy who makes disgusting comments about girls on the street? Do you only get offended when someone says something about your mother or sister, but stay silent when it’s about a woman you don’t know? Is your ghairat limited to your house only?

Have you ever read a harassment story and wondered, “But why was she even out that late?” Or “Why was she even wearing that?”

Here’s the truth: every woman knows a woman who’s been harassed. And every man knows a man who’s done it.
The difference is do you speak up?

And for the women, are you fighting for your rights or just fighting men on the internet? Are you a feminist in theory but still judge the girl in jeans at the mall? Do you support women who speak out or only the ones who agree with you?

Being a feminist isn’t just about what you post. It’s about how you live. How you speak. How you sit with your privilege and decide not to be comfortable in it.

Pakistan ranks 145th out of 146 on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index but numbers alone don’t bleed. What bleeds is the story of the woman who was burnt alive, holding her 11-month-old baby, in a domestic dispute, because leaving was never made an option for her. And this? This is not an isolated incident. It’s one of many that barely makes a ripple in our collective conscience.

Here, walking alone is a luxury, not a right. Every step outside is a gamble. The stare of a man in public transport. The fear when a ride-hailing driver takes a wrong turn. The urgency to share your location “just in case.” There’s no safe hour, no safe dress, no safe city. Catcalling is casual. Safety is conditional.

“Khaandaan ki izzat” trumps ambition. “Log Kya Kahengy”? It dictates everything: your education, your job, the colour of your lipstick. Cooking is a life skill for girls and a weekend hobby for boys. Little girls are told to perfect rotis because that’s what will matter in the “rishta market.” Because marriage here is a deadline, not a decision. After 25, they say you’re too late no matter your degree, your dreams, your fire.

Public transport becomes a staring contest you never signed up for. A marketplace becomes a maze of eyes. A full burqa doesn’t protect you from being undressed by gazes. The place that should be safest , your own home might not be. Domestic violence is brushed off as “ghar ka maamla.” The bruises, both visible and invisible, are expected to heal in silence.

In offices, gender pay gaps are not imaginary. Same job. Same hours. Same qualification. Different salaries, because one of them is a woman. And if she complains, she’s “too emotional.” Burnout is dismissed. Anxiety is taboo. And the solution to all of it? “Shaadi karado, sab theek ho jayega.”

Girls are taught to shrink themselves: Don’t laugh too loud. Don’t sit like that. Don’t have opinions. Don’t dream too big. Don’t be too much.

And yet, we still ask, “Aurat ko chahiye kya?”

Maybe the real question is: Why are we so afraid of giving it to them? Why are we so afraid to give them the basic equal rights they deserve?

Yet, I still want to believe that there is some hope, though. Seeing people starting to question the systems around them. More men are learning to unlearn. More women are lifting each other instead of competing in silence. Hopefully,  the idea of equality will feel a tad bit less foreign, it just needs time, effort, and courage.
Your time, your effort and your courage. Yes, YOURS.

If you’ve ever flinched at the word feminist, maybe it’s time to ask yourself why? Maybe it’s time to stop seeing it as a threat and start understanding it as a bridge, a way forward.
Because whether we like it or not, patriarchy hasn’t just hurt women. It’s damaged all of us.

So yes, feminist ho kya?

If not, maybe it’s time.